Fine by Me
by sometimesmilla
Summary: He cared then. But times have changed, people change. Feelings die out, I know. UPDATED: Chapter Two
1. Chapter 1

Today, at quarter to five in a windless summer afternoon, as I walk to some old English pub in Mayfair clouds still roll across London like in a Constable painting. I sit near the bar counter watching a man above the rim of my glass. I'm certain he is going to try to pick me up. I am even more certain what I'm going to do about it. In looks he vaguely resembles a overdressed, balding chubby-faced cocker spaniel; he might be, as they say, not overloaded with brains, and yet, at the same time, nobody's fool. He is―needless to say, not my type. I've got a tendency to go in for the whole GQ look.

I been here before, back in 1491, when I fist arrived in England. This place has not changed, and I love it for that. There was still the same ceiling, brown and glossy as though poured over with caramel, and looking so brittle as to make you convinced it would collapse at the littlest poke. The place is filled to the rims, even the little sitting room upstairs is crowded, and it's difficult not to think about what would happen if there suddenly were a fire. I'm waiting where he instructed me to wait; seated on the low, wide windowsill near the second entrance, at the far end, with plenty of space on either side of me to place my handbag and to put down my glass.

I have on a slim fitting button-down silk dress with little pearl buttons. I usually avoid over-bright colours; they are attention-seeking and hinder camouflage, but white is not, technically speaking, a bright colour. White is, nevertheless, bright. But more importantly, a white dress against olive skin is widely viewed as very attractive, and gold spike-heel sandals may compromise my ability to run or fight, but they look damn good on tanned feet. I wait, agitated and awkward. I cast another glance at Mr cocker spaniel and notice that he has moved his stool yet another few inches nearer to where I am sitting.

When my mobile phone rings, I snatch it up. The caller I.D. reads "Unavailable." I tend not to answer unidentified calls but I do this time, thinking it's _him _as I'm expecting _him_, at any minute now. H_e i_s the one supposed to come and meet me, and its already past the time he'd mentioned. Last week, through informants and bulldozing I got hold of his email address and sent a message saying we need to talk, and that I hope we can try to be friends. I told him I got a good reason why we should try. I didn't expect a positive reply, but he is coming. I will ask him to plead my case to his brother in exchange for my information, and he will do it. I mean he just has to, since he is the only one in the position to help me get me my freedom.

Would it be so bad if I assume he'll agree to a deal based mostly on an age old attraction? I mean, before I died way back when, he used to take walks and think of me. He called me _His _Katerina and would leave hand written notes on my pillow:_ "My Katerina, I took a walk tonight and it was swell, because you were there all the time. Why? Because a star fell right in front of me, the wind blowing thru the tops of the sycamores." _He cared then. But times have changed, people change. Feelings die out, I know. So if he does decide he won't than I will want him to end my miserable existence. I would even suggest it. After living half a millennia, bone-wary and worn down by trying survive―I just can't take anymore, pure and simple.

It's not _him_. It's Lucy, she calls me sometimes from New York, more often now than she has done in the past, and as my friend; I could say as a best friend, but I'll say as the only one I have left―she is entitled to never bothering with a greeting. First thing I hear is a overly sweetened voice ask."So, how is the weather?"

"What kind of hello is that?"

"Bad time?" There's a bit of a quiet then, she's probably listening to my background noise and trying to identify it for herself. "Sounds like you're out."

"I'm at pub waiting." I find myself saying into the phone. "He'll be here any minute, he is late actually." I've neither raise nor lower my voice, though I feel like I have done both.

"I don't see why I should have to say this to you, your a smart girl and all―" She takes a deep gulp of breath, shifts the receiver from ear to the other. She is wondering if she is being too abrupt. "But, this guy...he is no plaything."

"There will be no games ― I've assured him of that, and he gave me his word he won't kill me. The rest should take care of itself."

At this Lucy remains silent until, some minutes later, I hear her speak. Her voice is pitched so low she might just be thinking out-loud. "I don't know, though―" For a bruised, long moment, she's soundless again at the other end of the line. As if, she's thinking. I can picture her running through the oboe list in her head: my life expectancy, other options, if any. "What are the chances he won't keep his _word_? Him and his...they're—I don't know. Ruthless."

"Luce babes, I've told no one that he is coming to meet me, except you." I turn my back to Mr Cocker Spaniel to look out the window. Across the road I see a man holding up a sign: 'No sob story, no work, just need help.' It makes me smile. "If something does happen, you can revenge me. Turn him into a frog or something."

"All right, all right." I can hear her trying to keep her tone light. "Look Kat, I've got to go. You're off the hook...for now." Then she goes, in a natural voice. "Didn't discourage you, did I?" For a moment I consider pulling out, self-reasoning. . .but there is no one else I can go to. I click off without answering. She'll get an informative answer out of that.

I let my eyes stray farther down the room, gripped with disappointment at finding only middle aged husbands nursing their bulging midriffs under their expensive suits. This pub is known to be the best kept secret as the watering-hole for gold-diggers in need of a fat-cat. I look at them all carefully, and do not see him. I check my phone for the time; It's ten after five o'clock. I heave a agitated sigh. I turn my eyes away and take a sip of wine. While I watch from beneath lowered lids the progress towards me of the cocker spaniel, I fall to wondering if he has forgotten all about coming.

The moment Mr cocker spaniel just got up and taken a step forward with a wondering, round-eyed stare and open-mouthed smile, which makes me certain that he is just about to annoy me to no end with something like _'What fun seeing you here. Now let me think, where did we meet before?'_ is when some part of me recognizes his presence before I'm even aware of him standing behind me. A very low smoked charcoal breath whispers onto my cheek and through my hair. "We'll have another drink somewhere else" It comes so entirely out of nowhere that I think for a second I just imagined it. I turn to face the man I've been running from for forever.

Even though I've been waiting on him panic still hooks my stomach and pulls it towards my chest. What do I do? What do I do? I think, my heart pounding and mind firing a jillion synapses a second. But there is preciously little I can do at this point—attempting to run will result in a chaise, an attack is obviously out of the question. He peels my fingers from the glass I'm holding onto for dear life, and puts it down on the sill. He snatches me tightly by the wrist as if I might otherwise run away. His hand is a half-rough, half-smooth piece of ice and I twitch, dammit, like the last spasms of a dying bird. It's as if he just put his hand through my rib cage, grabbed my heart, squeezed it a little to see how it feels, then let go.

"Come along now," he says in the same low voice. His face is milk white, cocaine white against his sort of granite coloured waistcoat. His shirt sleeves are pushed up to his elbows, and I find myself staring at his forearm, at the fine, downy hair on it, at his hand. I'm feeling the pressure of his hard thumb against my pulse. I'm suddenly sure that I shouldn't have come. Seeing him, hearing his voice, is making me feel — well, I am not afraid to tell you bluntly, it scares the shit out of me.I tell myself to get a grip. I pick up my handbag, my hand shaking only a little, and while Mr cocker spaniel is still staring at me, round-eyed, and open-mouthed but with the smile gone from his face, I fallow Elijah through the door.

* * *

_I could not help but my two cents in on the what and how and when...Kalijah happened. This was a much, much longer chapter but I cut into two parts, Maybe three. ❤ __**Please do review! **__❤ They do make me post new chapies faster. _


	2. Chapter 2

On the pavement he halts and releases me. I look at where he'd touched me, and then I let my attention drop to his oxfords. Warily my gaze creeps up his legs, his body and to his face. The corner of his jaw is in a hard knot, and he is fixing me with a look that is speculative but too intense, even for him. For a moment, no one moves. _Oh god, this had been a very bad idea, _I think, as I look into his eyes and find them decidedly unpleasant. They are black as hate. My heart thuds twice in quick succession. He might want to kill me,and oddly enough this thought is a relief of a sort, but a numbing one. I glance away from him, to the other side of the street where the watery sunshine of the late afternoon lays on the pavement. Then I look at him again. Still contemplating me intently, he says nothing.

_Wait,_ I think. _Wait. No, don't get ahead of yourself. This is Elijah, He's not his brothe_r, and with this thought I notice how Elijah is in fact keeping a polite distance between us, as if I'm still the girl of five centuries ago, and he does't want to alarm me and my tender sensibilities. Taken by this I indulge myself by trying to smile with my eyes just the way I used to, and then give him a slow flick of my tongue, moving to moisten my lips. These first few moments in a man's presence is the most important after all. The goal is to be both irresistible and Virginal. When you succeed, a certain sharpness will go out of his eyes— a sure sign of the hook going in. The muscles in his throat shifts, then he swallows. "Maybe you want to take a walk first?" he says, lowering his head with a polite but exaggerated modesty, and his teeth flashes, damp and gleaming as they catch the sunlight. There is something sheepish in his slow polite smile. Shy maybe, like he used to be.

Only his smile remains, settling with something I can't pinpoint as his look at me shifts. _What is he thinking?_ I ask myself, watching a sort of not entirely _bad_ darkness roll over his features. I draw my lower lip between my teeth and his gaze drops to my mouth. We stand in silence for a while, half a lifetime in the space between us. After a heavy blink, he looks away and I wonder if it's to conceal feelings. Then he takes a step back, and just steps over the curb without a word. I fall in a step behind him. We cross to the other side of the street and walk a few steps, when I stop in front of an antique dealer's shop-window. Elijah stops too. I feel safe and reassured by the familiar sight of the bric-a-brac, then fans, the clocks, the beads, the sniff-boxes, strewn on to a sheet of blue watered silk which cascaded down from the top a sheraton chest and was arranged in small ripples in foreground.

He looks at me for moment as if this act— _my behaviour_ is beyond his expectations, but there is a wistful softness to his eyes that I'd seldom seen in him; "Do you care for these sorts of things?" I find I like very much the warmth in the way that he asks this. In fact it takes me off guard.

"Yes" I say, "but they got to be beautiful. I don't like things only because they are old. They got to be beautiful as well." I'm saying too much, speaking too fast, but I can't help it. This is probably the first time in my life that I speak to him without planning some of what I'm going to say. I'm too nervous to plan anything.

He says as though talking to himself; "I see. Old and beautiful. Yes, I see."

I feel myself growing hot and get annoyed with myself for blushing, and wondering why he makes me feel so embarrassed. I remain standing as I am, but cease to pay attention to the antique litter and raise my eyes to the glass itself, on which our two figures are mirrored. I do not look at him first. I looked at myself in the window; at the reflection shared with a human girl, at the face looted from the dead one. A van passes on the road, close enough so that my hair lists by the backdraught, and as ringlets bounce about my ears I don't recognise myself. I seem much younger than I remember ever being, like a dead girl-child in a Victorian photograph, like I really am his Katerina, not Katherine pretending.

As for him, in his waistcoat and white shirt he looks casually smooth and well groomed, in that confidence-inspiring and non-dandified style which Savile Row sheds on it's devotees. His new hair cut suits him better that the one from before — at least with it there something extra about him, anyway, like Cary Grant. And yet, despite the cloths and hair, there is always the question of his presence which clamours to be portrayed by one of the masters of spanish or Neapolian Tenebroso painters, or to be modelled by the limelights of the stage. There is something of an actor about him too, though not in the slighting sense of the term; I mean as first-rate man who would under-act and get his effect by trowing away his lines.

"I would not mind standing here for hours," For a moment we stare at each others reflection, his intense gaze inches over my face as if searching for secrets. The longer I look back at his stone face, the more it feels like he sees right through me. An old trick of his. "If you were looking at the stuff. But you have been thinking about something completely different during the last minute or so. Trying to fit me in?"

I flip my hair over my shoulder as I send him another angle of my smile, hoping to shake him off. "Maybe,"

"So we might just as well move on," He remarks nonchalantly, and shifts from his spot. "This way. Come along."

As he continues to walk by my side in silence I glance at him, at the straightness of his back, and the way his feet so firmly hits the pavement, at the way he holds his head high in that way only powerful men can do. He looks like one of those beautiful, marble statues you might find in a museum or somewhere in a dark corner of a church. But staring at him does't entertain me for long, and fairly quickly the sound of his footfalls, or more accurately our silence becomes so loud in my ears that I suddenly feel I have to say something. Anything to drown it out. "It's only that...actually, looking at ourselves in the glass in the window of that shop-i always think there's something uncanny about mirrors and looking at yourself in them."

"Yes," he says, but he does not look at me. "Why?"

"For instance, Narcissus," I begin hesitantly, "who fell in love with himself and pined away and died of grief because he could not reach himself and kiss his own image as he saw it in the water. The water was his mirror, of course."

"Yes," He repeats still staring ahead; "Go on."

"Then there was the magic mirror," This time he gives me the most impressed look, but he doesn't speak. I continue; "that made men fall in love with women, but only if they saw them in the glass and not in reality. Then there was the man who sold his reflection to a sorcerer and became friends with the man who sold his shadow to the devil."

"Go on," he says.

"Abraham Lincon looked in the mirror one day and saw him-self looking over his shoulder, and he knew what it meant-he was dead a few days later."

"Go on. What else?" he asks.

When I look at his face this time, he is watching me. I swallow a knot, embarrassed, not sure of what else to say. "There is nothing else," I say, "and you know these stories as well as I do."

"but you are pretty familiar with them" he remarks, his eyes still fixed on mine as if there is a text he's intent on reading there. "Why is that?"

He is right. My familiarity with these stories is unusual, and I have not made it my business during the last year or so to collect tales about mirrors, the would not have come pouring out of me the way they have just done. But I have no intention of disclosing to him the reason for this preoccupation of mine. Still I can feel his fascination, the sudden deepening quality of it, so I tell myself to speak so to give him something at least. "Well, naturally. I've known them ever since I can remember. I like them because they are strange."

He seems to consider my answer and time stretches taught as a wire between us. "but how can they strike you as strange if you've always known them?" He asks, "the familiar is never strange."

"The familiar is always strange to me-" I say with an uneasy laugh, and fall to wondering again about that sinister, sardonic actor's quality of his. There is one part for which he is cut out and he is a 'natural' for it. It is, i think, the role of Meohisto in Faust, the role of the destructive, jeering intelligence. But there is nothing evil about Mephisti, and I'm undecided about Elijah. I run my fingers through my hair to smooth it, and I inhale and exhale before looking him squarely on the face."You make me nervous."

A first it's clear he is wondering what part of my statement is accurate and what is not, then there is something unmistakably tragic in his eyes as his smile grows, and suddenly I'm aware my discomfort brings him pleasure. "Oh no, I don't want to give you this impression. You may be nervous, but not by me. I should say it is by your own fears. You should not have stopped yourself talking."

"but there is nothing else."

"There is plenty else," he says, and the forcefulness in his voice touches a chord of memory. I feel something twist inside me, but it is all so long ago I can't no longer be sure what it is. "was and is."

Then suddenly; "Here we are." he says, stopping dead on his tracks. "It did not take long, did it?" And, falling into an unctuously declaiming voice, he adds; "time passes so pleasantly with good talk."


End file.
